Massage therapists are not known for their left-brain skills. It’s hard to keep track of money, supplies, and clients and still use the powers of intuition and touch to help people. Or is it? There are some relatively simple and low-tech ways to keep track of things so you can keep up with your bills […]
The other day, whilst talking to massage therapist friends about the best and worst places to do massage, we came up with lots of candidates for best, but the worst won hands down: beauty salons. Yes, it has happened to many massage therapists. It may have been a fill-in job during massage school or a […]
Massage therapists like to think we help people deal with stress, injuries and fatigue. But how do we know we help? Massage is, after all one-on-one. We are stars or idiots one hour at a time, and we often don’t take much credit for our clients’ successes or failures. Is a massage therapist a facilitator […]
It is a new world for the massage therapist, just as it is for many other personal services industries. App companies are going whole hog into personal service. Rides, house-cleaning, errands, baby-sitters, pet-sitters, and yes, massage therapists. Where is it heading? For a big thumping collision as we struggle to define ourselves, our employers and […]
A massage therapist’s toolbox is crowd with all kinds of fancy techniques to address troubles in the body. Yet one of the most effective techniques one can use to release tension is to say something. Just a little something to put the client at ease. A small joke is letting clients know your empathy for […]
Those who do therapeutic massage are well aware of the statistics in the field. Burnout is a huge problem amongst therapists. What I have often heard from people is that massage is too hard to do enough of it to be secure financially and take care of one’s personal needs as well. I’ve also heard […]
My client had tremendous pain – 12 on a scale of 10 – in the area between the shoulder blades. She begged for deep pressure massage, and that did lessen it temporarily. But after 2 days the pain remained a 12. How many times has a client begged for a tough massage in hopes of […]
It’s a great compliment to a massage therapist when the person receiving falls asleep during a session. Those little zzz’s say trust, relief, serenity and healing. And for this massage therapist, it most often happens during the Swedish portion of the treatment, when long flowing strokes push dream-like consciousness over the line into sleep. So […]
Massage as therapy can be pretty basic. Therapists compress and glide along major muscle groups in the direction of the heart. The effort requires skill and practice. It reduces tension and boosts circulation of blood, taking some load off the heart. That kind of therapy is refreshing and soothing. But what about the spots that […]
We massage therapists love our helpers, be they oils, warm stones or essential oils. Lately I’ve come to totally enjoy something I at first thought would be a bust. Massage on silk is a method of gliding the hands across skin or clothes without the use of oil. Silks provide glide, like oil, but without […]